Efficacy of the Indian Legislative and Judicial Mechanism with reference to Nomination of Personal Assets: An Important Constituent of Financial Capability

Increasing complexities in the financial system has shifted the onus of personal financial planning on to the consumer, thereby necessitating financial education initiatives to enhance the financial literacy or financial capability levels of the people. Financial Capability is a concept embraced by a few countries like Canada, UK, etc. comprising within its fold components of internal capabilities i.e. financial literacy and external capabilities i.e. opportunities in the form of financial products, financial institutions, legislations, procedures and the like. The former becomes functional on the existence of the latter. Rather existence of and accessibility to external capabilities is a pre-requisite for the success of the internal capabilities. This study attempts to highlight the external capabilities issue in terms of legislations and their interpretations in the context of nomination laws with reference to distinct personal assets like bank deposits, life insurance, etc. The study further reveals intricacies created in the minds of all concerned parties owing to the distinct construal's of nomination rules by the judiciary in different contexts relating to the same as well as distinct assets, and also due to the phraseology of the different Statutes, leading to mystification of the construct among the consumers as well as time-consuming and costly litigations. The author has attempted to draw upon some solutions for the same. The desk method of research has been adopted by the author by analysing varied lawsuits in the context of nomination in India.